Worst Place for Sushi , 9/9/2014
Reviewer: Alex
from Santa Barbara, CA
OK, So never before have I ever been so pissed off at a restaurant as I am at Ahi sushi.
This was my first time ever coming to Ahi Sushi and I will never be going back again. So I like most people know what like and usually stick to what I know and I've tried almost every sushi place in Santa Barbara other then Ahi. So I thought why not? I went online looked at their menu for their phone number and prices. All I ever get is the Rainbow roll at any sushi place i go too. Its simple and I know from how much they can vary. So on the menu listed online it stated rainbow row are 10.45 or something very close to that. Which is about average for any sushi place. I call and place my order so far so good. When i get there the lady is very nice and polite. She hands me my food and the tab but to my surprise the total is 15. dollar. I didnít think too much of it bc maybe they havenít updated their online menu in a while or whatever the reason and it didnít bother me too much bc I have paid 15 dollars for this roll in the past at other places. I get my change say thank you walk to my car and drive home. When i get home i open the container where my beloved rainbow roll. is and look down to see the most pitiful roll I've ever seen in my life ! It was the most smallest rolls Iíve had ever gotten ! I am not exaggerating when I say they were tiny. I the roll was about as long and thick as my thumb which wouldnít be a problem if i was giant hands, but i donít ! I paid 15 dollars for a roll that was pathetic and grossly over priced. In the past Iíve payed 15 dollars for a roll and i got 15 dollars worth of sushi but this was ridiculous. I would of been better off driving the distance to some other sushi place bc at least there you get what you paid for not some tiny crap with slivers of fish on top it.
Don't get me wrong it wasnít terrible sushi but for the price and amount i would strongly STRONGLY recommend taking the time to drive some other place. For the sake of your wallet and apatite. Other wise you'll be like me and be so upset that your first ever yelp review in your life is to tell the world about this bc your that pissed off.
and if i had the time i would of return and given back what Ahi sushi calls a "roll" and spend my money else where bc for the price i could of gotten sooo much anywhere else.

Good sushi, Bad service, 5/29/2014
Reviewer: Chang
from Santa Barbara, CA
Sushi was good. One of the staff has very bad manner. Don't put dishes without any notice. Ask me before taking the dishes away even though you think that's empty.

Izakaya style in Santa Barbara
Reviewer: Curt
from Santa Barbara, CA
This is the best Japanese restaurant in Santa Barbara with the adoption of
the Izakaya-style (little dishes like tapas) menu Wednesday through Sunday nights.
We had dinner with five people last night and all the dishes were excellent. Order from the special Izakaya menu!

What happened to Ahi??????
Reviewer: Nicholle
from Santa Barbara, CA
I can't believe this is the same restaurant. The whole restaurant is completely run down: chairs broken, filthy floors, dirty/burned menus... The prices went up and portions/quality went down. This was our favorite restaurant and now, sadly, we will not go back.
Henson & Ken, what happened??? We miss Ahi ! Very very sad to see this once fantastic restaurant come to this.

Service much improved from my last visit
Reviewer: Jonathan
from Santa Barbara, CA
I wrote a review a few weeks ago and talked about the food coming out very slowly. We gave it another shot tonight. We were a party of four and ordered a wide variety of food - appetizers, entrees, sushi, etc. The food rolled out as it was ready and pretty promptly.
The wait staff came often to see if we needed more tea, check how everything was, etc. A much improved experience.
The menu has been expanded since last there, adding a lot of cooked items. The food itself was very good. I hope these improvements continue and look forward to going back soon.

What's wrong with service at Ahi Sushi...
Reviewer: Tim
from Santa Barbara, CA
The food was great, but the old lady's service was awful... It was not a busy night when my wife and I visited Ahi Sushi. Since the old lady was our server, we wanted to order more food from her. I had few eye-contacts with her but she simply ignored me, and the only thing she was doing was standing right next to the sushi bar and talking loud with sushi chefs. Are we not good enough to be customers at Ahi Sushi? I used to think Ahi Sushi was one of the best restaurants in SB. I hoped she could treat customers with more respects...

Tempura & sushi taste good, but not worth the wait
Reviewer: Jonathan
from Santa Barbara, CA
It took forever to get our food. 20 minutes for edamame. Tempura starter came after the sushi. They blamed it on a new cook starting that day, but other people have complained about the service so I don't buy it. Nor will I again.

New ownership? This place is suddenly very, very bad.
Reviewer: John Dopkins
from Santa Barbara, CA
Holy moly has this place gone down hill.
Mid September, 2011 - The waitress attempted to take our order about 8 seconds after we were seated. We were like "uh.....maybe we can have a few seconds to think and maybe, I don't know, SEE A MENU?"
So out come the new menus. Neither the waitress nor the ďhead chefĒ could name the contents of the specialty drinks. I ordered a large hot saki, my lady ordered a specialty drink. The saki was brought out in a small water glass resting in a wooden box. Who drinks scalding hot saki from a water glass? Anyways, the saki, which was about half of what normally constitutes a large, spilled all over in the stupid box, and was simply insulting. It's like I totally blew their mind ordering saki at a sushi bar and they had to McGyver something together.
Needless to say, the specialty drink was terrible. We were ready to bolt at this point, and one glance at the food menu sealed the deal. Their sushi is now $$$, and nigiri-type stuff is ordered in single pieces, not in twos. We bolted and went to Arrigato, which was awesome.

Food ok - service bad
Reviewer: Kai
from San Jose, CA
The restaurant was right across our hotel, otherwise we would have gone to a different place since the service was rated very bad. It turned out that the reviews were quite accurate. The food was just ok (for the $85 I spent for me and my two kids). We didn't get all the items we ordered at first and it took a very long time to get the check. The tuna was great, the shrimp and squid was not fresh. There were a lot of complaints at the other tables around us. One guy waited 45 minutes for his desert before he gave up, other folks got the wrong drinks and another party asked why the soup looked the same although they ordered two different kinds, the answer was short: they only serve one kind of soup this evening - no apologies. Overall I would not recommend this place.

Great Food and Service
Reviewer: S.M.
from Santa Barbara, CA
I went here last weekend with friends and it was great all around. I had read some horror stories about their service on this site, but we didn't run into any trouble. The sushi was delicious and fresh and the wait staff was very friendly and helpful. Great experience all around.

Delicous but....
Reviewer: Deanna
from Santa Barbara, CA
Amazing food, awesome sushi chefs, service needs work. The chefs are very attentative to their customers and provide a pleasant overall experience. I hope the waiter and waitresses work on their end too. Last time I came here, the waitress in red was arguing with the chefs. No one was taking my drink/appetizer orders, leaving the chef to handle both duties. Overall, I was happy with my experience here largely in part to the delicous sushi and sashimi presentation.

What happen to this girl manager???
Reviewer: Susan Walker
from Santa Barbara, CA
I went to dinner with my husband tonight. Ahi is always my favorite sushi restaurant in town.However, tonight when we went,it was not that busy.However, the girl looks like a manager let my husband and me sit to wait!? She was pretty rude. We waited for pretty long.She wasn't back for us,instead she sat and typed at the back. We waited waited, finally one server came for us and let us sit. What happen to her? No smile, very rude service!